Category: books

There’s a popular myth that octopi are literally aliens. The truth is actually more interesting: they are tremendously intelligent — comparable to a human toddler or a very smart dog — but their “mind” is spread throughout their body, with neurons in their eight arms.

Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life by Peter Godfrey-Smith looks at the evolution of cephalopods, their capacity for intelligence, the future of the species, and the big philosophical question: what is it like to be a cephalopod?

But even though this book was totes #onbrand and highly relevant to my interests, I found myself … skimming.

This is the first book that has really challenged my perceptions of what reading non-white travelogues means. Meeting Faith, by Faith Adiele, is about becoming Thailand’s first black Buddhist nun, and all the things that happened along the way.

This is a book review, but we’ll be honest; it’s mostly a blog post about Steph.

Big Little Lies is a bestselling 2014 novel by Australian author Liane Moriarty. It’s also a 2017 HBO series starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, which has sparked some interesting conversations about the value of women’s stories.

Commercial fiction isn’t a genre I usually read, but I was intrigued by the buzz around the TV show, so I bought the book, inhaled it and adored it, and then watched the TV series, about which I had/am having very mixed feelings.

As you know, I’m reading a bunch of travelogues by non-white travelers because travel is for brown people too. Today’s book review is of Around India in 80 Trains, by Monisha Rajesh. It’s exactly what it sounds like, by a member of the Indian diaspora.

Born in Singapore but a global citizen, Joyce Chng writes mainly science fiction and YA. She likes steampunk and tales of transformation/transfiguration. Her fiction has appeared in Crossed Genres, The Apex Book of World SF II, We See A Different Frontier, Cranky Ladies of History, and Accessing The Future. Her YA science fiction trilogy is published by Singapore publisher, Math Paper Press.

Stephanie was approached by Rosarium Publishing to review The Sea is Ours, then after she said yes palmed it off on Rivqa on the grounds that Steph is friends with both Jaymee and Joyce and it’s probably not super appropriate.

This weekend the Jaipur Literary Festival came to Melbourne, hosted by the Melbourne Writer’s Festival. This was a free event, with a full day of panels and activities, and so of course Stephanie attended. Below the fold: Writing Travel, and From the Margins to the Mainland.

In an effort to get through her to-be-read pile, Steph is attempting to read one non-white travelogue a month in 2017. Her first: Following Fish: Travels around the Indian coast, by Samanth Subramanian.

Hope you like learning about fish curries and the evils of globalisation. 4.5/5 fishies.

No Award is very pleased to bring you a guest post today from Rivqa Rafael about the Problem Daughters anthology, and the processes the editors are going through to create a diverse and inclusive anthology.

Problem Daughters will amplify the voices of women who are sometimes excluded from mainstream feminism. It will be an anthology of beautiful, thoughtful, unconventional speculative fiction and poetry around the theme of intersectional feminism, with a specific focus on the lives and experiences of women of colour, QUILTBAG women, disabled women, sex workers, and any intersection of these.